Capitol's Duran Duran Back On Track With 'Medazzaland'
Billboard
SEPTEMBER 13, 1997

To paraphrase the Timex slogan, Duran Duran has taken a licking over its two-decade life span, but the members keep on ticking. Now, with the release of "Medazzaland," due Oct. 14 on Capitol, the band has overcome some recent frustrations and is back on schedule with renewed confidence and determination.

"Medazzaland," the first album of new material from Duran Duran since its self-titled set in 1993, has been in the works for some time, but the group was sidetracked by the 1994 recording and promotion of "The Cover Album" and then again when founding member John Taylor quit at the beginning of this year. Now officially a trio, the band has rebounded to create an exciting, eclectic mix of rock, pop, and dance music.

"If you want a nice rhododendron bush to flower, you prune it, and I think that's what kind of happened to us: We got pruned, and then we blossomed," explains singer Simon LeBon.

"There was a lot of uncertainty for about a 12-month period with John in Los Angeles and us in London, which made it difficult to complete the record," adds the other remaining original member, keyboardist Nick
Rhodes.

"But, ironically, when he did actually depart, that was a catalyst for us to finish the record a lot quicker. We sort of compensated for our loss, I suppose, and actually wrote some of the best material on the album."

The result, points out guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, who joined the band in 1990, is that "Medazzaland" "is probably the most current music that we've put out. It's pretty much right up to the moment."

The 1993 platinum release "Duran Duran" spawned two hits, "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone," and the band views "Medazzaland" as the next step. Cuccurullo says, "That was the birth of the new Duran Duran, and I think that album showed we're about writing great songs and that we can be as current as anybody."

Adds Rhodes, "Without a doubt, it would've been great to follow that up a year afterwards, but the chips didn't fall that way. We're our own harshest critics, and we made sure in the end we achieved something that satisfied our own standards."

Interestingly, the current trend toward using effects and sampling in music harks back to the band's roots, and the band likens "Medazzaland" to its 1982 smash album, "Rio." "It's an area we feel very comfortable in, and the advent of all this electronic stuff has worked very much to our advantage with this album. It's a natural habitat for us, because we've always moved around in our genre, but at the end of the day we've always had a great interest in mixing rock and pop with dance music and electronic [music]," says Rhodes.

LeBon agrees. "I think we're definitely related to the music people are dancing to now. We're part of the ancestry of that, and hopefully we're part of it again now."

Capitol plans a multi-faceted campaign to market "Medazzaland," and executives are unfazed by the delay between albums. "I think everybody expects it. It's the story of Duran Duran, and people judge them on every record, not on what they've done in the past. If it's good they'll play it, if they don't think it's good, then they won't," says Phil Costello, senior VP of promotion.

"We've seen that consumers, retail, and radio react to each album as they hear it, and we think the public will respond to 'Medazzaland,' " adds Joe McFadden, senior VP of sales for the label.

The first single is "Electric Barbarella," a fanciful dance-oriented tune reminiscent of the act's early '80s heyday. The song is actually something of an anomaly on "Medazzaland" in that the bulk of the material explores a range of more intense themes and moods, in a rock vein. "It's one of the most up pieces of music we've written in a long time, and we thought it was nice to have something that was optimistic and fun and makes people smile," says Rhodes.

Adds LeBon, "Nick and Warren had been working on the Blondie track 'Studio 54,' and I got wind of it and said, 'Can't we have something like that on our album?' "

Capitol is planning a multifaceted campaign that aims to reach Duran Duran's existing fan base, as well as draw a new crop into the fold with remixes, 12-inch singles, an enhanced CD5, and a specially priced cassette, among other things.

The first 12-inch of "Electric Barbarella," which has already shipped to alternative clubs and record pools, is an import on the band's original Harvest label, with remixes by Russell Simins from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Eli Janney from Girls Against Boys. "That's the first taste to build up awareness that they have a new track and an album on the way. It's time to go to clubs and regenerate the base they have there," says Costello.

The second 12-inch, with remixes by Dom T., will ship in early September, and shortly thereafter a greatest-hits CD-pro with the album version and an edit of the single will ship to commercial alternative, modern AC, and pop stations. "Medazzaland" will be serviced upon release to college and other formats. A third 12-inch with mixes by Todd Terry will follow to other formats, including dance.

Television appearances near the release date include "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" and "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." The band is also set to appear on Howard Stern's radio show.

Additionally, Duran Duran and VH1 have linked for a sweepstakes, with the band performing at the winner's workplace.

A number of special projects are also in the works for retail. First, the label is pressing 50,000 copies of a limited-edition enhanced CD5 that includes the director's cut of the video, which will ship Sept. 15.

In response to retailers' concerns about the declining cassette market, the "Medazzaland" will carry a $ 7.98 list price for that configuration. "There have been a lot of cassettes at low prices, but they've been mainly new and developing artists. We wanted to address the issue for retailers who are saying, 'Don't walk away from the cassette business,' so we thought in order to get an accurate read, we had to try it with a major artist that has a single and video," says McFadden.

He says Capitol will ask for cross-displays of the configurations in stores, as well as featured advertising and signage indicating that the cassette is full-length.

Duran Duran will do an in-store at New York's Virgin Megastore on the day of release, and efforts are under way to air it in Virgin stores nationwide via satellite. If possible, McFadden says, it will also be somewhat of an interactive experience with the other stores, though that technology is still in development. Duran Duran will also autograph CD booklets to be shipped to the stores it is linked with in order to involve fans in other markets.

Another possibility is a performance at the grand opening of the Virgin store in Orlando, Fla., which will be televised on the Disney Channel.

Capitol has a "very extensive" co-op plan in place for "Medazzaland" and is working on developing promotions with all the major accounts, including a special "Medazzaland" listening station/merchandising display setup, according to McFadden.

Coincidentally, Mojo Records is releasing a tribute album to the band Oct. 7 featuring Bjorn Again, Eve's Plum, Reel Big Fish, Wesley Willis, and the Wrens, among others. Tentatively scheduled for October is a concert in Los Angeles, with Duran Duran set to perform along with some of the bands on the tribute album.

In mid-November, Duran Duran will launch a major-market, 15-city tour, playing medium-sized halls.

The act is also enthusiastic about constructing its own World Wide Web site, which should be up in October. "We're very excited because we're using all the newest technologies to try and leap a little bit ahead of what's out there," Rhodes says.

While there may be a certain amount of unavoidable pressure to prove themselves yet again, LeBon says, the band members are up to the task. "Some people who review the record might see this as some sort of twitching of a corpse, and it's up to us to go out there and show people we're very much still here and we're a part of what's happening now," he says.

Adds Rhodes, "There's a lot of different perceptions out there about what people think Duran Duran is about, but ultimately, to us, it's our vehicle to create unique songs and things that push us a little bit further and hopefully push our area of music a little bit further. We're all very proud of [this album], and I absolutely believe it's the right direction for us and one of the best, if not the best, album that we've made."

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